


Worth It

by dreamchaser31



Series: Brooklyn [2]
Category: Black Panther (2018), Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Not Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-06
Updated: 2019-05-06
Packaged: 2020-02-27 01:06:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18728575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamchaser31/pseuds/dreamchaser31
Summary: After meeting his daughter, Bucky Barnes' guilt starts to overwhelm him. Nobody said PTSD was easy and for a soldier with seventy years of torture to work through, it's damn near impossible. He may not want to lean on his wife, daughter, best friend, and self-appointed therapist to pull him through. But they're as stubborn as he is.





	Worth It

**Author's Note:**

> Continuing the Brooklyn story line. I hope you enjoy.

Bucky was standing between two pillars, so caught up in watching Jane and Darcy play with Brooklyn, that the soldier didn't hear Sam beside him until he was startled by him speaking. 

"Well would you look at that. That's something."

Bucky could only nod before he returned his attention back to the squealing toddler and her happy mother. 

"Didn't expect this. No wonder Jane has been MIA the last few years. Steve would have known right away."

Another nod. 

"You doing alright, buddy?"

"I don't know how to be a father. I wasn't expecting this."

Sam put a hand on his shoulder, "I don't think anyone knows how to be a father. I think it's a learn as you go thing."

"What right do I have to be a father?"

'Damn,' Sam thought. This ran deep. This was not a conversation that Sam thought he'd be having. Last night, seeing Jane again. Bucky actually did really well. And when he was introduced to Brooklyn, he teared up and even held her when she wanted to go to him. He helped Jane with her dinner, and it'd been a great evening. 

For everyone. 

The quietness this morning made absolutely no sense. 

Until now. 

He and Steve knew that going forward no matter how much rehabilitation Bucky would go through, that he'd be living with a lot of guilt. No matter how much you could try to convince him that brainwashing was a real thing. The thing was, no matter if it was real or not, Bucky remembered everything. Every hunt. Every command. Every kill. 

And as a soldier himself, there were nights he couldn't sleep remebering some of the lives he took for the good of the country. Bucky had seventy years worth of those memories.

Jane had helped last night, after Brooklyn had gone to bed and Bucky's adrenaline had died down. They'd sat on the couch and talked it through. She'd ran her fingers through his hair and held him as if her were made of glass. They'd talked about the elephant in the room, and that wasn't Brooklyn. 

Apparently today, it was Brooklyn. 

"You have the right to live and a good life, just like anyone else."

"You know I don't," he snapped before turning grey eyes on him. "after all I've done."

"I think you do. Steve thinks you do. T'Chaalla, Shuri, Wanda, Clint, Scott. Wakanda. Jane. Jane thinks you do. She's been searching for you since the bombing. Are you saying we're all wrong?"

"After all I've done," Bucky whispered and looked away. 

"Jane raised a baby into a little girl because she was your little girl. And that little girl knows who you are and that you're worth it. Babies are great judges of character."

"I don't deserve them."

"Buddy. You and Steve? You deserve every thing good that comes your way. And I mean that I really do. We'll work through all the junk in your head, I promise you that."

 

Jane had noticed Bucky's silence through most of the day, and the fact that Sam shadowed him most of the day was enough to let her know that Bucky wasn't doing well. 

She hadn't come to Wakanda with the expectation that everything would be roses and ice cream. She'd just been so happy to feel his arms wrapped around her again. And to introduce him to the most amazing gift he'd ever given her. 

Brooklyn hadn't been planned, but their last night together, before the accident on the train, had been anything but careful. 

She'd studied little of American History in school to actually know anything about the Howling Commandos, who survived, who didn't. Bucky's 'death' had devestated her to the point that she was unconsolable. 

She'd spent so many days crying herself sick and she wasn't ashamed of that, not even a little bit. 

Two weeks later Steve had gone down with the plane and Peggy had been the same way. They consoled each other, Peggy being the only one who knew about her and James. And Jane knowing the loss that Peggy was suffering. 

A month and a half after Bucky's fall, Tony had figured out a way to pull her back. She'd never got to tell Peggy goodbye. 

She'd found out she was pregnant and found a place in Brooklyn, much to her mother's dismay. To her, because Bucky had painted such vivid pictures of his home, it became her home too. 

If Bucky hadn't fallen off the train, she would have been content re-writing history, and spending the rest of her life with him. 

But it wasn't meant to be, and Brooklyn was born ten months after his fall. 

 

She watched Bucky sit on the front porch of their house. T'Chaalla had been kind enough to give them a place of their own, and while they knew it would take a while to get use to each other again, the Wakanda'n sunsets were a love they both shared. 

Sam hadn't shared much over what was going on in Bucky's therapy sessions and she was grateful. She hoped eventually he'd trust her enough to tell her. 

She opened the screen door and walked out. He definitely heard her, he always did. But other than a kiss to her temple as she sat down beside him, he said nothing. Not that she expected him to. 

She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled his face down to kiss his cheek before laying her head on his shoulder. 

"Do you remember when we first met?"

He scoffed and looked at her, his blue eyes full of mirth. "You hated me."

"I didn't hate you," she pulled back so she could see her face. "Not exactly."

"You called me a smooth-talking, womanizing, man child."

"In my defense. You had just got done hitting on Peggy before you came to me." 

"I didn't know you saw that." 

"Everyone in the room saw that!"

She remembers that night as if it were yesterday. She'd spent weeks trying to be invisible, and truthfully, Peggy helped. She wasn't built in an attractive way for that time period. While Peggy was curvy and voluptuous, she herself was lean and toned from years of rec sports and dance and lifting heavy equipment for her career. 

That night though, she couldn't help feeling a little left out. She hadn't been jealous, per say. Just forgotten. And at that time, she was still so gone on Thor that it really hadn't mattered. 

So when James had hit on her, right after trying to pick up her friend, a friend who was very clearly Steve's girl. The lack of Starbucks coffee, and pop tarts, and cell phones and telescopes had gotten to her and she'd snapped. 

"I was having a bad day."

"You were having a bad month," his eyes full of laughter. "Never had to try so hard to get a dance from a dame before."

"It was good for you," she shot back. "It was good for you to be told no."

"You definitely handed me my ass on a platter."

"Is that what you think?"

"Many times Steve had to talk me out of doing something drastic to get your attention."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. He didn't think dancing on a bar table with a rose in my mouth was something you'd enjoy. He said you was a classy lady and I had to be subtle."

"Remind me to thank him." 

He let a slow smile grow across his face and turned to eye the pink, orange horizon, while she reaches up and pushes a strand of hair behind his ears so she can see him better. 

"I like the long hair. You should keep it. Very sexy."

"You don't think it's too much?"

"No. And the stubble."

"You got some sort of fetish," he asks as he turns to her.

"Yeah," she raises an eyebrow playfully so he would know she's teasing him. "You."

"It's been a while."

"It has. But we have all the time in the world. I need you to know that. I'm not expecting anything from you. I just want you to know that we'll be here. As long as you want and need."

The thought of ever being away from him again sent chills down her body and an ache in her heart. But more than wanting to be with him, she wanted him to get better. And if that meant needing to stay away...

Well she'd do that too.

He must have gotten her meaning too because he let out a sigh and looked away. Again. 

"I don't know doll. I'm so messed up right now. I'd never want to hurt you, or to bring you down."

"You wouldn't. You couldn't," she was quick to reassure him. The same way that you pursued me when we first met? I'm going to be there for you, because I want to be there." She reaches up to directs his eyes towards her again. "And that starts with this. The day you fell, I was devastated. The day I learned you we're alive still? I knew that I would be able to survive without you. So I'm telling you right now James Buchanan Barnes, you may feel the weight of the world on you right now, but I'm going to be right there beside you, holding it up. And you're going to see-"

"See what," he whispers as his eyes fill. "What will I see?"

"That you're worth it.


End file.
